Henderson: The Battle of Windsor

The blarney flowed like cheap whiskey in the Rising Sun Tavern south of Detroit where bleary-eyed schemers were preparing yet another half-baked invasion of Canada.

It must have seemed like a lark to members of the American Patriot movement, a motley, ill-trained collection of Irish Anglophobes, U.S. expansionists, disaffected Canadians, thugs and opportunists, who were assembling for a winter assault on Essex County.

This ill-trained rabble came expecting to be greeted as liberators. What they received, for grossly misjudging the mood in this long-suffering corner of southwestern Ontario, was hot lead, summary executions, the gallows and exile to the furthest corner of the planet.

The Battle of Windsor, fourth and last of a series of attacks on the region, took place 175 years ago next month, Dec. 4, 1838, in an orchard where the parking garage behind the former Windsor Star building now squats.

That anniversary will be marked, if marked at all, by puzzled looks because most of us have never heard of the Patriot War that raged here as members of secretive U.S. “Hunter’s Lodges” tried to “free” Upper Canada from Britain’s evil grasp.

That’s too bad because the last battles on Essex County soil were among the most dramatic in this region’s epic history.

Some things never change. The folks in this region, as now, were feeling shortchanged by the power brokers in what is now Toronto. It appeared Upper Canada, even then, ended at London.

The Essex County Historical Society has released a brief but informative book, The Patriot War of 1838, an excerpt from Leamington-raised historian Sandy Antal’s powerful history of the Essex Scottish, which explains how this region was feeling isolated and defenceless following the withdrawal of the British garrison from Fort Malden, which exacerbated the area’s economic misery.

The area, Antal explained in an interview, had been left a wasteland by the War of 1812 and a brutal American occupation. “Not a house in this region was left untouched. Even the hinges were taken off the doors.” The burning and looting left the area devastated for decades.

“People didn’t know who to be more angry at,” said Antal. They were frustrated with the lack of help from the colonial regime. But they were furious over Patriot attacks in early 1838 on Bob-Lo Island, Fighting Island and Pelee Island where thuggish invaders had “robbed them blind” before fleeing.

The Battle of Windsor was payback time. The Patriots, who had behaved brutally after coming ashore, murdering a black Windsor barber and killing and mutilating a British army surgeon, were confronted in the orchard by militia units. Caught in a cross-fire, they retreated into nearby woods where survivors were tracked down by Indian warriors.

After the battle, Col. John Prince, a lawyer, magistrate and probably the most incendiary figure this region has produced, ordered several rebels executed.

“Here. Shoot this man,” he casually remarked of the first Patriot brought in. A second was told to run for his life, with a dozen muskets trained on him. Five (some say six) were executed. Prince wanted seven more killed but their Indian captors and senior officers pleaded with him to spare their lives.

The executions were hugely controversial. Prince fought a duel with a leading citizen who had condemned his actions. He publicly horse-whipped two other critics. A huge bounty was offered in Detroit for his capture or killing. A defiant Prince announced that his farm, now part of Mic Mac Park, had been booby-trapped with shotguns.

No question it was murder, said Antal. The executions were even condemned in the British Parliament. But they were also a direct expression of the area’s “complete exasperation” with Patriot incursions.

Prince, hugely popular with the local population, was sent in triumph to the Upper Canada legislature.

The captured Patriots were taken from Windsor to London, Ont. to be tried. Six were hanged and 16 were “transported” to van Diemen’s Land, now Tasmania. The rest were sent home to the U.S.

It’s better than hanging. But just imagine the misery of a prison voyage halfway around the world.

Dr. John Carter, a research associate at the University of Tasmania and former Park House curator, said the 16,000-mile voyage on HMS Buffalo, which took 4 ½ months, included only one scurvy-saving stop for provisions, in Rio.

Prisoners served two years on Tasmanian road gangs before given “tickets of leave” to find paying jobs. Most eventually found their way back to the U.S. A few stayed on in Australia. One ended up owning a coal mine.

Windsor and Tasmania. Forever linked by a gun battle in Francois Baby’s orchard that preserved Canada’s British ties and snuffed out Republican aspirations.

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